Food Fog

Taking Time Out

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

Today was Darren and my seventeenth anniversary, so we took the kids to my mom's for the afternoon, and spent some time just relaxing. We walked around the park, taking goofy pictures of each other, then came home and made big bowls of banana "ice cream" for our dinner, and watched a movie together. Just having those five or six hours apart from the kids, made me realize that the time we take alone for ourselves, or together as a couple, are just as important as the time we spend with them. Having that time to refocus and remember who we are a bit, helps to recharge our batteries and give us more energy and focus when we're back in the daily routine with the kids. So, we'll definitely be moving alone time, by ourselves and as a couple, to the top of our priority list.

My health related book of the month this month is Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth. When I saw this new book of hers, I recognized her name, and spent a few minutes digging around on my bookshelf, uncovering a couple of her past books on compulsive and emotional eating. I probably purchased them more than a decade ago, so it made me reflect upon where I was then with some of my "food issues," as compared to now. I think her newest book really shines a line on some of my lingering challenges, but frames in such a way that it's not just another defect in my personality to overcome, but really just a spiritual practice of awareness and commitment to observing each moment. So, it's an enjoyable read thus far.

This weekend we are hosting another raw food potluck, so I'm looking forward to socializing and seeing what dishes everyone comes up with. I'm moving towards really liking uncomplicated foods. While I appreciate the artistic side of creating a lot of these gourmet raw food dishes, I feel best when I eat simple, whole foods. We've been doing a lot of green smoothies with just greens, and one or two types of fruit. A few of my simple, five-minute meals lately, have been shredded carrots or zucchini, dulse flakes and mashed avocado, or often spinach and bananas blended in the food processor make a quick filling meal. And occasionally, I'll find a couple good young coconuts, and make a meal out of that, with some chopped veggies or greens on the side. Granted, the kids aren't as enthusiastic about my simplistic meals, so I often end up making additional things for them, but at least my food prep is quick and easy!

Anyway, as this day closes, I can only hope the next seventeen years of marriage can provide me as much opportunity for growth and that I can be the kind of partner that facilitates that growth, too. Somehow, this all intertwines with my ongoing pursuit of a balanced relationship with food (nourishing myself), and I can't help but think, much like Geneen Roth says in her newest book, that the way we eat tells our story, right there on our plates. So, take a look down at your plate. Who do you see?

Dietary Dogmas

Sunday, 04 April 2010

Today is Easter, and with it comes the theme of the celebration of renewal and rebirth. This caused me to reflect a bit upon how dietary dogmas can be akin to spiritual or political belief systems. If we subscribe to nutritional doctrines so blindly that we neglect our own intuition, we can end up adhering to a set of behaviors that do not optimize our health and well-being. Handing over complete authority of our approach to nourishing ourselves to a dietary guru or philosophy can inhibit our growth and limit the expansion of consciousness of the role of food in our lives.

It is important to keep an open mind and accept that as we grow and change in life, so will our understanding of what is best for us at the time. As we navigate through life, gaining knowledge and experience, it often requires us to shed some beliefs, and at the same time, solidifies others. Each of us has a different set of experiences and the paradigm with which we align ourselves can be a big part of how we view and define ourselves. Nonetheless, just like the definitions of some words have changed and expanded through the years, so should we challenge the definition of self in relationship to its current context.

My relationship with food has evolved greatly since my youth, when food was merely a series of measurements; calories and grams of fat, either used with restraint or over-consumed and abused. Even through the next decade, discovering vegetarianism and having that resonate with me so profoundly that I completely gave up meat, and moved towards abandoning animal products all together, I still continued to consume, and over-consume, plenty of vegetarian and vegan processed junk foods that compromised my health and vitality. It wasn't until around my 30th birthday that I started to make the connection between healthy, whole foods nutrition and the potential impact on my health and overall quality of life. This launched my interest in nutrition and my curiosity about how much I could improve the way I felt. Was there a possibility that I could actually find balance with food?

The answer is yes. I could find that balance; sometimes... a lot of the time. But, just as other areas of life are not stagnant and unchanging, neither is my relationship with food. Sometimes that balance is threatened by emotional triggers or seemingly little reason at all. When this happens, it's necessary to adjust my stance, just like if I were on a balance beam, wobbling back and forth, trying to keep from falling. Failing to center myself and align my focus with where I am at the moment would result in an inevitable tumble. And this is where those dietary dogmas can be a hindrance to growth. If we are not willing to take stock of where we are, and what we need right now to regain balance, we can end up stuck in and uncomfortable stance, clinging to the beam, or falling ungracefully into the dietary abyss.

So, I guess all these metaphors simply allude to my awareness of the fluidity of life and my gratitude for the opportunities for changes in perception, understanding and awareness on this unique journey. I think we can all speculate about the "ideal" diet, but I also think that our evolution as a species finds us so profoundly different now that where we began, that all we can do is speculate and surmise. It comes back to honing in on your own navigational beacon; that sense of where you need to be in order to stay on course, and following the signal, rather than detouring because the group ahead of you does, or because your tour guide says it's part of the package. Gather all the information you can about the terrain ahead, using all the available maps created by other dietary explorers, but don't be afraid to chart your own course!